Generation Xerox
by Sunlight through Leaves
Summary: No one ever accused Kakashi of being a hopeless


_**Title: **__Generation Xerox  
__**Summary:**__ No one ever accused Kakashi as being a hopeless romantic.  
__**AN:**__ Written for Seigyoku-wolf for the Pick-A-Number game at the Kakairu group on Deviantart. Her prompt was "Generation Xerox." Definitely a fun trope that I hadn't heard of before, and I enjoyed thoroughly writing it. Beta'd by the wonderful Kiterie._

The dawn light cast soft shadows across the worn stone stairs around the Hokage tower. From above, voices filtered down punctuated by a few bursts of laughter. He glanced up, identifying the voices out of habit, and he smiled broadly when a third voice chimed in, light and teasing. If he sped up a little, well, no one was around to notice.

Iruka turned the corner, spotted him, and called out, "Good morning, Kakashi-sensei."

"Morning, Iruka-sensei." He stumbled for a moment, searching for something else to say so that this wouldn't be simply a passing greeting on the stairs.

Iruka stepped down onto the one broken, uneven step in the whole staircase and paused, facing him. "Mission assignment?" Iruka started to ask, but a shout and several creative curses echoed from up above, followed by the flutter of paper. Iruka's head snapped around, and he leapt forward, stretching out to catch a handful of the veritable rain of papers and books. There was no chance that he was going to manage to catch more than one or two pages, but he stretched over the railing in a vain attempt.

One of the plummeting books caught the tips of his fingers, skipping off, and he made a desperate lunge and snagged it on the second grab. Iruka stumbled backwards, book clutched against his chest.

Even from the awkward angle, Kakashi could see Iruka's lips hitch upward in a satisfied smile, and he couldn't help matching it. Forget all the other items doomed to a painful end in the mud below; one book was saved from that terrible fate. He opened his mouth, witty remark building on his tongue, but Iruka's form suddenly crashing into him knocked it from his mind. He scrambled to get his feet under him, but the steps were slick with the morning dew, and Iruka had far too much momentum.

He managed to get his hand underneath him just in time to jam his finger into riser of one of the steps. The flash of pain was too sharp to be anything other than a broken bone.

"What...just happened?" Iruka tried to get up and succeeded in only elbowing Kakashi in the ribs.

The jab didn't particularly hurt, but several parts of him were complaining from their rude introduction to the stairs, so Kakashi winced anyway

Still half-sprawled across his legs, Iruka twisted uncomfortably, clearly looking for a place to put his hand down that wasn't currently occupied by Kakashi's limbs. His knee knocked against Kakashi's, and his efforts to sort out their tangled legs were less-than effective. He let out an irritated huff and tried again.

The motion pinned Kakashi more completely against the stairs and sent a spike of pain through his finger. Forget the exaggerated, and rather fake, winces, he grunted in real pain this time, and struggled to free his arm from under his back.

"You're hurt," Concern laced Iruka's voice, and he stopped struggling. "I'm sorry, Kakashi-sensei. I didn't," he faltered, fell silent, and leveled a stare at Kakashi, eyebrows drawing down deeper and deeper with every passing moment. "You're a jounin."

Kakashi wrenched his arm out and frowned at the swollen finger. With any luck, he'd be able to get it fixed without having to offer an explanation. "Well-spotted, Iruka-sensei."

"Don't be an ass," Iruka snapped back, hesitated as if he hadn't quite meant to say that, but then plunged on, "I mean that you're a jounin. You shouldn't get hurt by someone falling over on you. _I_ don't get hurt by someone falling over on me; only my students are allowed to get away with that. Why didn't you use chakra? Skills?"

"And miss the opportunity to have an attractive man on top of me?" Kakashi grinned up at the mask of disbelief plastered across Iruka's face. The words were out of his mouth without a second thought, but even as Iruka blushed, scrambled backwards and stammered out a series of incoherent syllables, Kakashi's brain stuttered to a complete halt. His gaze slid off Iruka's face to fall on the worn steps.

Those words. This place.

This person.

He took the stairs outside the Hokage tower far more often than any other jounin. Everyone else, he knew, chalked it up to his eccentricities and didn't bother to worry about it any more. The stairs were important, though.

No one ever accused Kakashi of being a hopeless romantic – no one really knew him well enough to suspect it – but Jiraya's books were broken open not to one of the copious sex scenes but to the heartfelt pages of dialogue instead. He'd silently rooted for Asuma and Kurenai throughout all the years that it took to get them together, and he took the stairs because this was where his parents met.

His mother and father had crossed paths that day by chance. A brief moment of distraction, and his mother caught her foot on the loose stair that everyone knew about and usually knew enough to avoid. His father had broken her fall and, when she'd scolded him for catching her, he'd delivered the same cheesy line Kakashi just used.

His father even went further to tease her into taking him to the hospital and join him for lunch – she'd sprained his wrist. It was the least she could do.

Iruka grabbed his hand, the touch avoiding his injury, and muttered something under his breath. The blush was fading, and he looked as exasperated as ever. He peered closely at Kakashi's hand. "Hospital."

Kakashi grinned. "Only if you'll join me for lunch."

"Lunch?"

"It's the least you can do. You did break my finger."

"I...?" Iruka protested before finally smiling sweetly. "Fine. But you're buying."

Kakashi could live with that, and, as matters turned out, he would live with it for the foreseeable future.

He told Iruka eventually, blurting the story out one night when they were sprawled on the couch, Kakashi cleaning and sharpening his kunai, and Iruka grading. Once he'd finished, he'd kept his gaze averted, not sure how Iruka would react to hearing why Kakashi'd asked him out in the first place.

Iruka squirmed around, his voice laced with incredulous disbelief. "You sap!"

No one _had_ ever accused Kakashi of being a hopeless romantic, but to his unending relief, Iruka kept that revelation to himself.


End file.
